Further Thoughts

You can't balance anything on the head of a pin. I just spent several hours trying and it was a waste of time. I came close with a piece of cigaret ash, but at the last minute, when I might have claimed success, it fell apart. I almost lied about it, for the sake of narrative, but the truth is the experiment failed, and I not only didn't advance my argument, but actually fell behind, that I had thought it was possible to balance anything. Call me a fool, call me a phantom, or the experiment rather. A simple failure. We see this most often in the gloaming at dusk, when the real world fades into shadow. Not unlike today, which I don't remember at all, looked at some pictures, thought about time, and suddenly it's dark, the bugs are playing a high speed drone, heat lightening in the distance. I'm not a player anymore, I want to be distanced and I dance in a very small circle. It doesn't really matter, hang on to that, madder, it's just a dye-stuff, a color we can reproduce. As a player I'm too slight to present a problem, barely have the forearms to pull in a large pot of stew. Like my Mom used to make. Her again. I seem to be saying something. Read more...

Feedback

Not that I expect anything. That's not why I write. I only write because I have to. The only possible explanation. Why else would you? It's so much easier just to accept a job and do whatever it is. Shoot whatever mother-fucker it was. Oh, excuse me. Sorry, I've got some personal shit I have to deal with. End of life issues and wether or not I need to leave for Florida right now. I've been on the phone all night and I hate the phone, I'd rather pick up dog-shit with latex gloves and a Kroger sack, in a public park, than carry on a conversation where I can't see the other person. I tried to call the museum twice, to tell them I was preoccupied. D calls, he's on the road, picking up artwork from a ceramic person in Cleveland, and I hope he relays a message to Pegi. I'm not trying to be difficult. Oddly, I'm completely transparent. If you die, and they bring you back to life, are you the same person? What I find is a plethora of situations. I don't know who to be. Cain or whoever that other guy was. Abraham held the blade. I only eat road-kill because it's available and I made jam long before it was fashionable. Backlit leaves might stop me for a second, the way the light plays, but who you are is a matter of public notice, not unlike that public "A". which seemed to mean something. A madder of choice. Read more...

Errands

Needed groceries, mostly liquids, and I wanted to stop at the Goodwill Bookstore (a separate building), to start a pile of books for winter. I'll need to shuffle some piles this fall. The book situation is no longer critical, because I found a couple of boards from a bed, in a dumpster in town; I never saw the bed put together, but these two boards were 1.5 inches by 10 inches, 70 inches long, poplar; I always have brackets, I collect them, so I put up another couple of shelves in the girl's room and I'm suddenly 12 feet ahead in linear feet of storage. 300 to 400 books. It's cool. I can take last year's pile of winter books, which I read in no particular order, and simply stacked back on top of the pile, and file them horizontally, thus clearing the space where I pile next winter's pile. They take up space, we have to allow for that. A grotto of entombed and dusty books. B is off to Mexico tomorrow, but brought over, before he left, Ken Warren's amazing collection of essays, covering thirty years of writers both in and out of the system: "Captain Poetry's Sucker Punch". Ken is an incredible reader and thinker. There were four of us in Joe Napora's kitchen, once, B, Ken, Stephen Ellis, and myself; we were doing a pretty good job of hacking the universe into knowable and unknowable. I was just picking up scraps (an adumbration of my custodial future), as the other three guys at the table were talking in a language that I barely understood. Joe was standing at the doorway that led to the living room, where the other half of the party was taking place, Janus, looking both ways; his wife's family, and he needed to keep a foot in both worlds. These are the conversations that live in memory. I've been blessed with a batch of very smart friends, and I only, barely hang on to their coattails because I know them all. I'll take what I can get. Right now, let's go back, I cleaned out the refrigerator and ate some things I probably shouldn't have eaten. But I hate waste, you know? Pretty sure it was the chicken salad that tipped the cart. Explosive diarrhea and I really don't want to get very far from the outhouse, I may have to call in sick. Admitting failure. On the other hand, I've worked a lot of extra days. Read more...

Another Leak

Nothing if not ready. An artist might use both sides of the paper, a common occurrence, and we choose a particular side, doesn't mean we're correct, just means we've made a choice. Golden and tremulous poplar leaves in a particularly colorful dawn. I think about used vehicles for a while, and what I can afford. Something in which I could take a road-trip, which I would like to do, drive to Denver and see the girls. Samara called, full of the theater in which she is involved, and we talked about cheese, as if that was a common subject for fathers and daughters. In our case it is, because both her mother and I make cheese, it's not difficult, mozzarella, for instance, is easy. I evaporate the whey to a paste I spread on toast. All the sugars are water soluble. B stopped over for a cup of coffee and we talked various subjects, but mostly about having a different set of values. He's off to Mexico, Tuesday, for ten days with old friends. Maybe I'll travel in September. It's a lovely month, and the museum will be almost closed down, for the elevator work, "set out, now, in my raft upon the sea". Something like that. I've looking at the Jeep Liberty from 2003 to 2005 and it seems to be a fine vehicle, good ground clearance, and with decent tires could address the ridge. It has a shorter wheel-base than I'm used to, so it steers differently, but I can learn new tricks. The very idea of not having a truck is shocking, but I need better gas mileage, and I'd rather be more comfortable. At the Goodwill I found a set of CD's, eighteen lectures of an hour each that profess to explain modern physics and string theory. It was two bucks and I was thinking about a road-trip. I might drive for 48 hours, and listen to 18 hours of tape, the rest of the time, I'm just looking out the window. Read more...

Naming

Got up to pee and checked the phone. I had a dial tone. Wow, I thought, someone is getting good overtime. Turned the AC off, it's 75 degrees outside. Sent some mail. That sense of shift in tense. Back to the present. I keep a large glass in the fridge, I wash it once a week, in which I keep a mixture of juices. It's a great glass, 16 ounce, Anchor-Hocking, heavy, thick-walled bar glass. What I might call a straight-sided flare. To give it a name, this glass in my fridge, call it a 'Connie' for no particular reason, but then you can refer to it, you know, a 'connie' and then it becomes vernacular. I was thinking about something else. Oh, right, Hopper's watercolors. Not a very large leap. One 'H' as good as another. I was looking at those Homer watercolors, and then these Burchfield (there's an 'h' in there too) paintings came to my attention. I don't think I'm an idiot, but I wonder sometimes. Emily is a mystery. We've reached the dew-point. I have no idea what we do with that. I speak a broken English. I learned it on the fly. Patois. (I surprise myself, roll with the punches.) One thing I like about my current life is that I'm not answerable to anyone. I defer to Sara, and several other people, the reasons are myriad, but the result is the same, and they make only small demands of my time. I like the pub and the people there, so a spend a few hours a week in there. The rest of the time I spend alone, thinking about such things as that Carter's middle name was Holbrook. The Brooklyn show in 1921 was spectacular, I've tracked down images of many of the paintings, I'd love to have hung that show. My Dad was born in 1920. Wyatt Earp died, Honorary Sheriff of San Francisco, in 1925. Just saying. The docents ask me how I had ended up here. A legitimate question. The long version takes several hours and a bottle of whiskey, the short version I can do in ten minutes with a cup of coffee. I don't think I'm unusual at all, until someone starts asking me questions, and then I realize how different we are, our concerns. Most people want to be engaged and entertained from the outside. Some few of us choose the opposite path. It's not a deliberate choice, it's a mandate; listen, I have a very early watercolor of Carter's hanging over my desk, 1920, he was sixteen, it's not very good, the mounded hills are merely breasts. I get it. But he was already working on his technique. 25 years later he was doing incredible work. Absolute control of a medium is not something it's easy to achieve. 25 years seems about right, all things considered, how long it would take. These watercolors from the late 40's blow me away. Like reading Dorn for the first time. Read more...

Up and Down

The power did go out at my house last night, the digital clock was flashing, it had been back on for either 5 or 17 hours, so it would have been a miserable night at home. Right at 100 degrees again today and 86 degrees inside my house when I got home. The AC struggles to satisfy Black Dell. When the theater is not in use, we tend to use the area at the back of the 'house' as temporary storage because it's on the same level as the main gallery, but we had to clean it out for the event tonight, so D and I made eight or ten trips up and down the 24 steps, carrying things. I made at least 10 trips yesterday. Rain again (we need it) but no thunder, so I leave the computer on. I bought some Real Bacon bits at Kroger for the open-face tomato sandwiches, I'm sure they're terrible for me, but they're so goddamned good. I intend to make a pesto tomorrow, and a guacamole, and eat nothing but tomato sandwiches. It's another finger-food and drink event at the museum, so I haul all the trash away and stock the bathrooms, clean the kitchen, mop the main gallery, because I don't want to lose my touch, and vacuum the entry mats at the back and front doors. Just when I'm leaving, the musical group is unloading. TR has this handled, but one of the women is stunning and I consider staying, just so I could see what she smelled like, elect to slip home between storms. Fuck a bunch of smell. I knowingly shoot myself in the foot, because I've learned shooting myself in the foot is the easiest way to slow the action down. Gotta go, the thunder is getting violent. It's 80 degrees in the house. Read more...

Another Storm

Stayed late at work while Gerry, our piano tuner and repair man, reattached the sustain pedals to the gallery baby grand. He'd taken the whole assembly off to take it apart. It didn't have the right foot-feel. He essentially straightened a plunger and tightened the bottom plate with a couple of new screws. Cranky to reinstall. After he left, the sky darkened and the mother of all storms hit. No way I was driving in that, or even walking over to the pub. I made a dinner from cheese, salsa and crackers. Took a beer from the fridge. Go downstairs to the library and get a book on Winslow Homer, kick back with dinner and a beer. Read some of Mary's letters, look at pictures. I can hear thunder, the rain, and the wind, which is testament to the power of the storm. This place, at night, is usually quiet as a crypt. There's a lull, then another squall line hits, the rare brown-out at the museum, and I have to reset the router for the inter-net. Watched cooking shows while I was reading. I don't like the competitive cooking bullshit, but I do enjoy watching someone cook something that I have an interest in. I have a particular interest, right now, in eggplants, because they're fixing to hit the stands. I make a great fake caviar from eggplant, anchovies, and possum fat (it has the perfect granulated texture), that I usually serve myself, spread on the cracker of the moment, usually saltines, with sweet gherkins and a double cheddar. I want to make a perfect eggplant marinara, maybe with some cheese sprinkled on at the end. And I can search the whole Food Network. Long day ahead. Custodial responsibilities. Kids movie in the theater in the morning, then a big musical event in the evening. I'll have to clean the place between the two. Read more...

Party Line

Yesterday afternoon the sirens went off in town, I tuned to the weather channel, and a severe "Straight Line" storm was moving through at 60 MPH (meaning no tornado threat) and torrential rains. D and TR were on the road to and from Cincy, and they had to stop several times, a miserable trip, but they got a new Carter, willed from someone's estate, and some furniture we'll auction off, and I waited a little late for them, to help unload. The power was out, the house was sticky hot, but I wasn't going to drive back into town just so I could be somewhat cooler. And write, tell you, what had transpired. I'm anxiously awaiting my docents from Columbus. A simple sequence of events happens, to be there maybe you'd have to smoke an illegal weed. I was very good. None of these docents had ever experienced anything like a tour with Tom. They were great, bright, interesting and interested, and we talked about the work. Thunder, I have to go. Becoming a pain in the ass. But this year, especially, a part of the package. Black Dell chirps "Please Wait" while she reboots and I shut down and go take a nap. It's intensely exhausting to perform for a couple of hours. My knowledge of a particular body of information is very large, I have all this first level data, the letters, the photographs, and I lay it out for them, and they're blown away, that in a backwater, I'd be the one, an aging dude in denim, had the scoop. It doesn't really make any sense, I think, to them, that they could learn anything from me. I get this a lot, because I'm out there, in the field, making the best of a given situation. Pat. They asked me to come to their museum, on a Thursday, because the ten of them were just the Thursday docents. I have to digest that. Just the Thursday docents, I mean come on, consider what that means. How many docents are there? Read more...

Black Dell

Hot early, and I needed to make the extra trip to town. Laundry, Big Lots, a beer at the pub. Reading Carter material at the museum, where the AC is free, and about ready to head home when Anthony showed up. D had said he might. Back to the pub for another beer. I love talking with Anthony. He's not only the best potter I know, but he's interested in everything, and the conversation is all over the place. Yesterday he was helping to build a hybrid wood-fired kiln outside of Cincy. He's been away for a year, teaching to cover a friend's sabbatical, made good money, now drawing great unemployment while he looks for another job. I'd like for him to be around here, I'd give him a piece of land and help him build a small house and a kiln. At any rate, I got to town early enough that there was still fog on the river, so I went below the floodwall, listening to tugs pushing barges that I couldn't see. We amuse ourselves. Steve Bob turns to Tom Bob, they're sitting on upturned five-gallon buckets, and they have chicken guts with a three ounce weight, out in the edge of the current, hoping to catch a very large catfish, Steve Bob says something about the accommodations, Tom Bob is already pissed, he not only doesn't like the accommodations, but hates the future. (He grows on you though, and I like his attitude). Turns to Steve Bob, and whispers something about the circumstance. They're fishing with very large deep-sea rods, 80 pound-test nylon line. This kind of fishing is mostly about waiting, laconic conversation, eating Vienna Sausages, smoked oysters, saltines. Steve Bob gets a strike, or what passes for a strike, his line starts snaking upstream. Patience is everything, you don't so much 'set' the hook as wait for the fish to swallow the bait. Catching a large catfish is a lot like foul-hooking a discarded kitchen appliance. You haul back, and gain a few yards, it's traditional to curse. Generally the cursing gets increasingly complex until, at the end, there's a quality about it that transcends language, a cascade of profanities. You don't net or gaff a fish like this, you just tire it out and tug it into the shallows, then grab it by the gills and pull it up onto dry land. You can't really eat these, as they come from a sewer, so it's usually catch and release, but if you have pool of spring water and feed them cornmeal for a few weeks, you can make a gumbo. Read more...

Reading Back

Diana is on my case about getting together a Janitor College book, willing to help me get it published, so I spent most of the day reading back over my work. The Janitor College stuff is pretty funny. The frogs would make a good book. The weather, the food. I'd been hesitant about pulling out a specific book, because I felt it wouldn't accurately reflect what I was doing with the Ridge Posts. Not sure I care about that anymore. The source is available, you can read it in context, if you want to. A food book would be fun. A book about The Wittgenstein Plumber, or my own personal rant on class distinction. Mind Camp. Too hot to think, even the short walk to the truck, 100 yards, causes riverlets of sweat to run down my back. My belt is wet and ringing with salt pools. I had forgotten that, the way a work belt gets wet. Retreat inside, turn on the AC. The routine, roll a couple of smokes (I stay one cigaret ahead, so there's always one for a phone call), get a short drink on ice and let the ice melt. My old and frail parents call, they sound like brittle newsprint, and, afterwards, I can't get them off of my mind. What would MFK Fisher do? I had picked up, from the remaindered bin, one of those bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin steaks, partially frozen it, and cut it into four medallions. I want to make an onion jam, to go on top. To perfectly caramelize a large red onion should take almost an hour. I use a 10 inch cast iron skillet to do this, equal parts butter and olive oil, then I transfer it to a much smaller pan, add some ginger, some tamarind paste, a little brown sugar, and reduce it. It's sinful. I only make it a couple of times a year. Indulgence is one thing. Just saying. While it's reducing I cook a sweet potato, and dust the beef medallions with the current rub. I sear them quickly, in a very hot pan, pour the pan juices over and top with the onion jam, bust open the sweet potato and fill it with sour cream. This is so good the Gods themselves look over my shoulder. Read more...

Something Lost

I think I lost a page, maybe I'm just out of order, but I sent another page, which wasn't the same at all. Clearly I need some instruction. What I try and do is just clear the decks. The gun-ports of British warships were painted red, so you wouldn't notice the blood. The Live Oak ribs of the USS Constitution were spaced two inches apart and she was planked with four-inch White Oak inside and out, cannon balls bounced off. The most incredibly stout frame I can imagine, built from wood. Now we can send a spent-uranium projectile through four inches of steel. Good for us. Woke up thinking about battle tanks and how all the bridges in Eastern Europe had been rebuilt to support their weight for the war that never happened. Made an egg on toast and brewed a double espresso, went on a word search, to divert myself from The Art Of War (manly though it may be, it is mostly a distraction) and ended up curled on the sofa looking at pictures, watercolors, mostly, Winslow Homer, Hopper. Last night, when everyone had left, I turned on the lights in the Carter gallery; I'd brought up a chair from the board room because my feet were aching, and I wheeled from painting to painting, looking at them from a different perspective. D had asked me about my plans for the weekend and I suspected I'd spend Sunday reading, and that I'd do laundry on Monday, then Tuesday brushing up on some facts, and Wednesday with the docents from Columbus. Probably have to take Thursday off. Friday have to set up for another event. It's a dance, even something as specific as the dart of a dragonfly, if you're paying attention. Otherwise, how, exactly, do you spend your time? I'm curious. I have a calendar, I make some notes, otherwise I pretty much let things float. A crude system. As long as there's a path to my back door, and I have the key, I'm not concerned about appearances; check for a rattlesnake below the step, hot foot it inside, get a drink, roll a smoke. A life constellated thus. Neither a bad thing nor a good thing, just a fact. Nothing makes any sense. When you catch me unaware. Read more...

Too Late

Black or pink, I mean come on, I'd choose black every time. I like pink ok, where it occurs naturally, in flowers or sunsets, but it's a chance color in my palette. Mostly, I lean on shadow, blue, gray, black, and, this time of year, shafts of yellow that defy logic. Going into work I was blinded by the shafts broken by the trees. The way light plays is ephemeral. I pulled off into the church parking lot, just because it was available, and because I couldn't see well enough to drive. I know if I stop, roll a smoke, sit in the open door of my truck, and breathe carefully, that I can regain composure. That the angle will alter. That, eventually, I'll be able to see. Thus drive, and get to work. I'm pulled-over, in the church parking lot, not bothering a soul, and the deputy sheriff pulls in next to me. I hate the idea that anyone can ask me questions. I do what I do because I have to, it's not like there are options. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong, but I drive slowly, and that makes me suspect. He asks me to roll him a smoke. I know this means we'll have to talk, and I'm not happy about that. Ends up being a fine conversation about wild turkeys. He knows me, knows where I live, and, like B, knows every road in the west half of the county, knows the name of every hollow. I tell him there's a large flock above the corn field behind the new stables and he's sure they'll let him hunt there. He hunts them the way I used too in Missip, with a .22 rifle, going for a head shot. A shot I used to be able to make, at fifty feet. I learned to shoot from a cousin in Water Valley, Mississippi, shooting from his parents back porch, shooting at walnuts on a tree 75 feet away. He and his father were both great shots. They hunted quail and only fired when two birds were crossing and they could take both with one shot. With his .22 he rarely missed a nut. I got pretty good. D got a wild hair at work and cleaned the kitchen, bitching, correctly, that it wasn't his job, and I helped, without saying a word, because I enjoy D's colorful language when he's on a rant. Had to get off my feet for a while, and I read a very good essay about Winslow Homer. I'm studying the American Watercolor, and it's interesting, the break from European influence. We did something in the afternoon, I forget what, and I couldn't wait to get home. For one thing I'm going to have a vine-ripened tomato sandwich, and for another, it's just a cool place to be. Piles of tottering books and vine ripened tomatoes. I'm not sure it gets any better than that. Walked through the door at 5:32. turned on the AC, saw that it was 88 degrees inside (a digital thermometer on the AC unit), and before I could change into a wife-beater tee-shirt and weightless pants, the power went out. I almost went back to the museum, but there was light enough that I could build an open-face sandwich with mayonnaise and tomato and mozzarella and a can of tuna in oil with a sprinkling of white balsamic vinegar, had a couple of drinks and didn't want to drive. Crashed early on the living room floor, and when the power came on, at 12:43, I started this. I know when the power comes on because Black Dell says "please wait" and then there's a tone, it wakes me from the deepest sleep, and the digital clock starts flashing. But the phone was out and I couldn't SEND. On the way to work I see the problem, another blowdown has taken out the line, and when I got to work, walked across the parking lot, out back, to where the Frontier repair trucks gather for their morning coffee, and told one of the drivers exactly where to find the break. Still, I get a telescoped page when this happens, things get out of order. I'm impatient and cursory with taking notes. I need to get a cheap lap-top with a battery and charger, just to write on, no other function; should be able to get one for next to nothing, as what I need is someone's last generation. I need something for when I travel, and especially for the gig at Chatauqua. Diana wants me to edit out a book, one of several that exist, in the more than 2,000 posts, and I could get a manuscript together, but I have no idea who would publish a book about Janitor College. I maybe have a few hundred readers, I'm not going to jump off the shelves. A backwater, where Detroit Rip-rap (dead vehicles) attempts to alter the flow. In this deranged drainage, which it is, nothing is ever simple. Brecha is a trail made by animals, a great word I first heard in western Colorado, usually referring to a deer-trail. In rugged country it's the only way to get from one place to another. I need a good soak followed by a serious day of scrubbing, I'll probably emerge pink, but what's to be done? Thinking about what a friend had said, that the power grid held no storage, I wonder that the system works at all. For the first time in 72 hours, I have both electricity and a phone. Simple pleasures. I get a short drink and smoke a bowl, doesn't matter what time it is, I should keep a bottle of champagne in the fridge, for times like this, when everything is working. Too much text, Mail Waiting To be Sent, and I take out some words, add a few commas; this is after going through and altering the punctuation so that it more accurately expressed my spoken voice, but I was concerned that there was too much of a run-on quality and commas allowed a pause. So I went back and added a few. This is what Emily was doing, tweaking the language with her dashes. An attempt at order. Hearing is different from seeing. Smelling is different from touching. Senses morph into an apparent reality and what we experience seems to be real. I'd better send this, while everything is working. Read more...

Opera

Busy afternoon and evening yesterday. Toured a large group, 30 or more, through the entire museum. Interesting, bright group of adults, Leadership Council or some such, from the Tri-State area (Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky). Flirted shamelessly with a couple of women, one of whom made a date to come back and tour the permanent collection. She seemed genuinely interested in my knowledge of Carter, as her parents own one. The local universe. As soon as they were out of the museum, we had to set up for a major classical music event, then fold and insert an eight page program into lovely, exposed deckle, 2 color cover; all of which D had created in a single day. I was supposed to go home, but a severe thunder storm hit at 4:30, and there was no chance I was going to brave the driveway. We needed the rain, and the musical event was looking to be large enough that another body would be useful. I ended up, as I often do, as the server of wine, and doing a brisk trade, because of my banter. I know most of the people, and keep my personal jug of bourbon in the kitchen for pouring a select few what I know they would rather drink than an extremely mediocre wine. The event is fantastic. Faith and Stan are both great singers, international, great voices, and they blend beautifully together; and it was a great program, if you like that kind of stuff. They did duets and solos from "La Traviata" and "Carmen". I worked Beverly Sills last "Traviata", with the whole sick crew, in Boston, and I hadn't listened to it since, it was nice to hear again. Took advantage of the empty museum, this morning, stripped down in the kitchen, took a sponge bath, washed my hair, shaved; running water is such a cool concept, HOT running water? you have to be kidding. I've been looking at some things closely, recently: American watercolors from the twentieth century, landforms and drainage, all of Carter's work. Three things. I can usually hold three things in my head, at any given time, cross reference and make some comparisons; there might, or might not, be any connection. I just look at things as they occur. It's a matter of taking the time. Read more...

Later

All the rest of my life I put in a blender. Fuck a bunch of garlic. The chair I could endow would be one of those that no one sat in, ever. I could endow an empty chair. A cheap folding metal chair. The Bridwell Chair. They bring it out, every once in a while, to make a point, but it's just a cheap folding metal chair. It doesn't even signify. We spent our time playing scissors, rock, and paper. Occasionally I'm good at cross-word puzzles. No fault, I'm saying, should be deflected to you, a lateral, right? Not a pass. Mid-morning and the power was out again, it was already hot, this was yesterday, and I decided to drive the back way into town, forest-service roads, I knew the museum would be cool and quiet. Cool and quiet sounded like a great combination. I'd spent several hours, the night before, talking about Emily, and I wanted to read some things, stare off into space. The drive in took a couple of hours because I got more or less lost and had to back tract to find the river road. I could smell marihuana growing in a corn field in one of those two or three acre bottoms over behind Pond Run, an Indica, smelled a little skunky. Not wishing to be shot, I didn't investigate. In a swamp, somewhere I could never find again, there was a handsome stand of Marsh Mallow, white and pink blossoms as large as my hand. I pulled off at a rest area, beginning to think I knew where I was, so I could roll a smoke and consider my situation. Lost, but within the confines of a limited area, a triangle that I understood geographically: I knew where I was, but I was lost in the moment. I remember watching a pair of swans herd their babies away from me, a kettle pond, feeding Quivet Creek, but that was a long time ago, now I get a couple of geese, necking. It's not so much that I want to appear a certain way, but that this is the way it is. Have to think about that, sentences, a line, grab me sometimes, and I'll spend an hour or two thinking about meaning. Only possible, of course, because I live alone, and can do pretty much do what I choose. Read more...

Hard Rain

Raining for hours, whatever chance for fire long extinguished. Coming on seven o'clock in the evening, pearl gray skies, the water has sucked away the heat. It can't be more than 78 degrees outside, because Black Dell is running like a Swiss watch. My phone line is down, which is too bad, because I wanted to talk to my girls, but I did talk with Glenn and Linda and she's going to get back to me on dates for the Emily thing. My only task, I'm pretty sure, was to nail down those dates, so D could design a flyer, and we could, you know, put it on the radnalac, calendar, that time factoring sheet that hangs on the wall. No wind, and every drop of moisture is being sucked back into the system. Everything was so dry. The corn might be ok, the soybeans; what this rain really represents is a whole flush of weeds. Twenty-five years ago, I remember buying a pump, to draw water from a spring to irrigate an acre of corn. There was a slight pitch, in that bottom, that I had enhanced by the way I plowed, so that the water flowed naturally from a higher to a lower point. You can't control water, but you can lead it in your direction. That bottom in Mississippi was about four acres, any given time two acres were fallow, a cover crop of wild peas and clover, and the other two acres were divided between a garden and the corn. I needed the corn, because their were so many mouths to feed. Problem is that corn is not easily digested, but if you cook slops for the pigs and you have a bunch of semi-domesticated chickens, you can convert various starches into fantastic compost. And it's an easy crop to manage. Corn. I have to laugh, it's 3:30 tomorrow already, and I'm remembering a particular corn crop, Jesus, get a life. But I do remember that year, in highly specific detail. The yearly note was due, the only mortgage I ever carried, a single annual payment, and I needed to get twenty hogs finished for auction so that I would have the $5400 I needed. Five years into a ten-year stint, I was able to burn the papers and never look back. Now, I'm completely out of debt, though my vehicle is dying and I have to wrap an Ace Bandage around my hernia; but I don't owe anyone anything. Read more...

Veronese

Paolo Veronese and the Petrobelli Altarpiece. They're attempting a reconstruction, but the damned thing was cut into pieces and sold separately and there are some strips missing. We don't have the original cartoons, but there's a fair amount of anecdotal evidence, and his other work, with which to compare. The more I read about this, the more incredulous I become. They bleach out the actual painting, with light, and map the substrate, every pit and bump, then grid out the reproduction in a pixel so small as to defy detection. The reproduction of the color is very close to perfect, based on a complex index that factors time of day and season. We know I'm not a technical guy, but I love reading about this. I understand what they're trying to do. Leave the technical shit up to TR or D, I can't tell one cord from another. I don't listen, when people explain things to me, I'm trying to look at the whole picture, get a sense of things. It's four o'clock in the morning, and I'm poring over images of a fragmented altarpiece from the Petrobelli chapel; it was a large chapel, there were several murals. And an art dealer decided he could sell Christ, and thus was born an industry. Not to sound too cynical. I like this place, where I can just stop, and look around. Bounce back, as it were. I might just possibly make the best omelets in the history of the planet. The one I just had was one of my best, I'd turned on the AC so I could be one with Black Dell, and I had time to fully caramelize an onion, 40 minutes, you do them much longer than that and they start drying out and become a different product, a wonderful thing that dissolves on the tongue. I'm sure it has a name. But I want the actual, converted, onion bits, with blue cheese, and a small diced vine-ripened tomato. A Roma, any firm tomato. This is so good I swoon, I swear. I nearly passed out. A three-egg omelet with a multi-grain piece of toast and a very bitter marmalade. Read more...

Weird

Glenn mentioned that you couldn't tell the hippies without a dance card, and I had just gotten my hair cut, I swear, yesterday, because it takes less water to wash short hair. Also, to his question, I probably could get some of the docents to come out to the house, we could set up a shoot. By the end of that day, I'll have them eating out of my hand. I think I'll wear the black bibs, they show off my pallid demeanor. I'd appear less threatening and more like one of the good old boys. Life is strange. D found an interesting word, sfumato, which is that smokey atmospheric effect most telling around the eyes of the "Mona Lisa", and I spent several hours looking at reproductions of early Italian painters. I can do this, because I don't have someone telling me I can't, that I should be doing something else, yard-work, for instance, or burping the baby. You laugh, but other people think it's important. Appearances. Coming up Mackletree, three crows in the road, enjoying a smashed squirrel; I hate to disturb them, so I stop and roll a smoke. Squirrel guts seem to sell for a premium. Part of the charm is that I don't have a agenda, and can be easily distracted. Aphid shit, vine-ripened tomatoes, the spatter of rain on my windshield. Three of anything becomes a list. The first vine-ripened tomato sandwiches, one just a cold open-face with mayonnaise, the second with mozzarella, run through the toaster oven. I'll eat one of these every day until after first frost. Quiet day at work, set up for an musical event in the main gallery, measured everything in the alley so D could do a detailed drawing, washed wine glasses, then left an hour early. Dumped about a hundred hamburger buns (from the dumpster at the bar) on the bank of the lake. The geese were on the other side and launched as a wave to investigate. I escaped a feeding frenzy. The two guys on the dredging scow (The Akron) gave me a toot on their horn. They're pumping the small fines from where Mackletree Creek runs into the lake. Silt is always an issue. For one thing it weighs a lot, and for another, it takes up space. Dams are catchments. In a related field, I was reading about when the Straight Of Gibraltar broke through, the rate of flow exceeded Niagara by a factor of ten, imagine what that must have looked like, realizing you'd have to go around. A trek of years or generations, to get from here to there. A specific bird at the wrong time of day. Subtle clues. Is this whole fabric being manipulated? The only person I don't suspect is myself, everyone else is full of shit. I know what I saw. Read more...

Odd Moments

I surprise myself, sometimes, how stupid I can be. Tom and Lauren sent me a strange card and a twenty dollar bill, which I converted to a bottle of whiskey. Jana had sent me several links to photographs and I lost them someplace between my Black Dell and the Mac at work. I can't even open a link. I'll get her to resend the information (dada, by any other name) and get TR or D to open it for me, and print it out. I trust hard copy. Remembering the past is a tricky concept, nothing bleeds like success. Bear with me. A certain way of avoiding pain is to never let anyone inside, and that (I almost said 'this') works, in so far as; but I'm remarkably gregarious for a hermit, and genuinely interested in other people. Mostly, I live in my world, which is tightly constrained and defined by access. I let other people in, which I do on a regular basis, because I'm empathetic; and when I do that, allow 'other' into my life, to a certain measure, I lose control. Left to my own devices, even my kitchen table amazes me. It's not even flat. Fucking tables. I shim a pile of books. The problem is that only people you love can hurt you. So you protect yourself, add some layers, a conditioned response, we see it even in bacteria that are hardly aware, and know that everything is suspect. Convoluted. I'll put a good face on it by looking slightly addled. It helps if you jump up and down, slightly off the beat. I'm actually taking it pretty easy at work, between shows; the last three years, with D stalking his MFA have been difficult, but he's back now, taking care of a great many things. I can spend a couple of hours a day off my feet, reading Mary's letters, or about how the watercolor became a distinctive American medium. I've been thinking a lot about spending the whole day with the Columbus docents. These are bright people, and it's my subject, so there should be some interesting questions. I thought, briefly, about wearing my Carhartt bibs that day, or I could be discovered mopping a perfect chevron in the main gallery; because Columbus, is, you know, way more sophisticated than them hicks what live down by the river. I'd like to take them out to my place for lunch. I'd be so interesting. The aphids like the Linden trees, so on the way to lunch and back there are these extremely perorated leaves on the ground, and I keep picking them up, because they're so beautiful, so delicate and unique. So intricate. I'm a fool for a photo-shopped image. Could those possibly be, we're on the same page; I don't trust that motherfucker with a pony-tail, he's up to no good,. Read more...

The Grid

By the time the power was restored, it was late, and I'd been reading in an awkward position for so long I had a neck ache. Occupational hazard. I'm sleeping on the floor downstairs. I got a foam pad from the furniture store next door; a couple of pillows and a very light cotton blanket, because I sleep mostly on my side and I like to wad it between my bony knees. The floor gets first light, through the patio doors, so I woke in plenty of time to clean-up, shave, have a nice egg on toast, get a second cup of coffee, and read for an hour (critical theory about modern literature) before heading into town. The Jet Intake Cleaner has helped with the truck, it runs a little smoother. D and I go for coffee (and my scone) and we discuss his day yesterday, looking through one of the great collections of prints, at the Kennedy, over at OU in Athens. World class. Everybody that's any good is represented. Problem is that they're mostly not framed, so if D wants to put together, say, a 'modern' show, we'd probably have to go over there and frame them, which would be cool, but take four or five days. Whatever the show, it will have legs, play other venues, and that would more than cover the up-front costs of putting the show together and crating it. For others to decide. After TR had helped me clear the main gallery of the sundry racks of tables and chairs, which had involved rearranging everything in the kitchen and store room, I was finally able to address the cleaning of the remnants of a sit down dinner, as what it was remembered. I'd go to sleep. I' I were you. Fuck a bunch of possibility. Read more...

The Usual

Black Dell confuses me. I thought I was done. Got up in the night to pee, check the phone, as is my want, and there's a dial tone. I sent whatever it was I wrote yesterday, without reading it, leery that the service would fail again. Remembered that today was my birthday. Just at dawn I make a lovely three-egg omelet with caramelized onions and a very good British cheddar. My bread had gone moldy, but I had some biscuits in the freezer that Mom turned me on to, that I could bake in the toaster over, and a wonderful marmalade from Spain that a friend had sent. Spent the morning rereading Barry Lopez's "Arctic Dreams", one of my favorite books. I'd picked up, at Kroger, a package of bones being sold as doggy treats. Beef shin bones, ripe with marrow. I dust them with pepper in a throw-away aluminum pan I rescued from the trash at the museum, pour about half an inch of chicken broth in the pan (I don't like beef broth) and cover them with foil. Start a small fire on one side of the grill and put them on the other, spin them, whenever I think about it, and cook them for several hours. The last thirty minutes, I add some damp hickory chips to the fire and take off the foil. Split a couple of biscuits in half and toast them. I have a interesting marrow spoon I hammered out of an old wooden-handled screwdriver. One decants the cooking liquid and adds a shot of brandy, a heady and probably lethal beverage, and spoons the marrow, bite by bite, onto the edge of the toasted biscuit. This is so good, atavistic, that it is best eaten alone in a cave or a tree-tip pit. It's the only meal that makes me growl. Three days alone and the dailiness morphs into something that exceeds the actual events. All the paraphernalia and junk that accumulates, mentally or otherwise, comes under scrutiny. I spent a long time looking, but I didn't find anything. Doesn't phase me. Marrow might be a Tupi word for fat. I love the Tupi, they're one of those island tribes that took one look at a boat full of white guys and disappeared deep into the Amazon. A pickle fork would probably work pretty well as a marrow spoon. Off my feed, as they say. There's an ancient hush to the forest tonight, nothing you would notice right away, but I live here, and it seems almost oppressive, like the demands for sex from a former lover, or water over the dam, knap: didn't we agree to a truce? I would never expect you to bet the family jewels. The full panoply. There's a word for this, in some unwritten tongue. Mareco, a type of squash, pointed at both ends. Yet another oblate spheroid. There's a certain sense in which all of life is just a rugby game. There's the scrum, some open field shit, then we just rip off each other's ears; no, wait, that was what passes for music. In preparation for going blind, I do things in the dark. Tonight, I rolled a cigaret. Granted it wasn't one-handed on horse-back, but it was in the dark, and when I turned on the light, to see what I had done, it actually looked like a cigaret and smoked just fine. Have to think about that. Read more...

More Storms

The weather had to break and that usually means a transition event. Mid-afternoon the first line of storms moves through, taking out the power (I had the house cooled down somewhat) then another line and the phone goes out. In an hour the power is back on, but there are squalls all around. B came over for a chat, brought a piece about his encounter with the rattlesnake; he's going to Mexico next month, someplace safe, to spend 10 days with some writer pals. More thunder, but I want to write. The young poplars are looking terrible, the aphids and the hot weather have them already dropping yellowed leaves. B says another year of this weather, no real winter and thus no winter-kill, and a repeat of this recent hot dry blast and they'd be toast. They grow too fast to cover their ass, but they come back quickly, like sweet gums, and they'll survive, down in the creek bottoms. Mom called and she said she likes the new assisted living facility and is comfortable; it's just a house, actually, with five people that a mixed race couple take care of in exchange for $1600 each per month, which doesn't sound that bad to me. I couldn't do it. Rip me open and flay me alive.Then Dad gets on the phone, Mom has gone to pee, and he tells me it is now day to day, before Mom dies, and he has no intention of living long beyond that. OK, we got that out in the open. I assume he has a plan. I have a plan. Anyone with any sense has a plan. Plenty of time to think about that, because a vicious squall takes out the phone, and I can't even call my brother and sister, to get their take on the situation. I'm wondering if there even is an objective reality. It's amazing that the world functions, each of us wrapped so tightly in a personal universe. I'd been losing weight and I can't afford that, so I now keep sources of protein around that don't require chewing: avocados, yogurt, nut butters that I tend to eat by the spoon-full. Like with a very cold winter, these very hot spells are difficult to navigate. Not unlike those times, pre-instrument, when we tried to find which way was north. I had some jolly times in the woods, trying to remember on which side of the tree the mold grew. I've always had an unerring ability to find my way back to the path. It's a simple skill, you walk increasingly long diagonals until you intersect a deer trail. Then you just follow things to a conclusion. Not to simplify. The ground tilts, and leads down to the river. You'd be a fool not to lash together a few logs and see where that might take you. Read more...

Divertissement

An anchor might fix a particular location, or two would be better, to control drift in either direction. As though there were only two. You'd have to fix all the various psychological positions, and that becomes more problematic. Who is anyone to say? I'm a tinker. I nose around in things, I don't even think about it, a pile of shit warrants my attention. The power is interrupted about once an hour as the temps, yesterday at 5:30 hovered at a 100 degrees, then 103 today, at two in the afternoon. I must have reset the AC a dozen times since getting home from work yesterday. I can't boot up so I eat well (steak and eggs, avocados, some sweet potato fries) and read a novel, by a guy I'd met, who read at the museum, Donald Ray Pollock, "The Devil All The Tine", which is dark, cruel, and often quite funny. The electricity stays on enough that I can keep the house bearable, though the temp does climb back up, during the afternoon, from 75 to almost 85 degrees before it starts cooling off around 8:00. Don't remember the heat ever hitting me this hard. I went out back to pee around three this afternoon and I nearly passed out. Fortunately D went to the library with me yesterday, and I ended up checking out three books, which will just about last the three-day weekend. The Pollock, the Chuck Palahniuk rewrite of his first novel "Invisible Monsters", and for regional color, the newest Nevada Barr, because I know the country she writes about and I like to be taken back there. The desert southwest is a lovely place. Works, as escapist fiction, for me. I have a huge amount of food, most of which doesn't need cooking, sardines and vine ripened tomatoes, gherkins, olives, a stinky cheese I'd been wanting to sample. The usual sleeve of saltines. Someone had left a mystery smoked meat in my mailbox. Read more...

More Heat

Hot today, but hotter tomorrow (102) then hotter still on Saturday (104) and I feel almost nauseous, sleepy and irritable. Thank god D got the second AC unit working, because it's pleasant inside the museum. I gather trash and clean out the refrigerators, against whatever wedding thing is happening Sunday, then clean and stock the bathrooms; docent the Garden Club through the exhibit. A late lunch, alone at the bar in the pub. When I get back to the museum TR and D are both missing, but TR's hat is there, which means he's in the building. I have some other things to do, so it's somewhat later that I find them, down in the classroom. They're planning a renovation. Nothing expensive, mostly moving things around and painting. It's a good plan, and it's cool in the basement. I still know nothing about the wedding on Sunday but I do know that it'll not involve me working Saturday. Just as we're closing up, the afternoon squalls are building to the NE but I drive out from underneath them with just a few spatters on the windshield, the driveway is dry. The house is very hot, 90 degrees, and it takes an hour and a half to get it down to 81; then, just when I start writing this, the power goes out again. I know exactly what it is as it follows a pattern. Rural electrification involves a great many sub-stations that branch off into the various hollows, when they get a 'trunk' lined repaired, they kill the sub-station so they can connect the new line, then turn everything back on. Usually takes an hour, what with the safety protocols. This often happens at the end of the work day for the repair crews. These guys are dedicated AND they're making a lot of over-time, so they want to get Pond Run, or Pond Lick, or Sand Lick Hollow back on line. Sure enough, in just about an hour my power is back on, but the house has warmed up and I have to cool it back down to 81 degrees, and the delays have interrupted my line of thought. Strip steaks were on sale, after the holiday, and I got a couple of small ones that I could just pan-fry; an over-easy egg on top, some left over baked potato, a piece of Texas Toast with horseradish jam. An after dinner smoke, and a couple of fingers of Irish Whiskey, I got deeply into a long article about restoring a mural in Venice. The technology is amazing. It was suddenly late and I needed a nap. Sometimes things don't go as you planned. My intention was to write a kind of set-piece about Carter's year in Europe, and I never mentioned him. Go figure. It was not so much that I needed a script, as I wanted to organize my thoughts. Read more...

Choices

Never not nothing. There's always fantasy. Seriously. I should have spent more time with that French group, but I was busy cleaning the back hall. Need trumps desire. My older daughter called (the comparative yields more information) and we discussed Greek drama exactly as if it were modern, which, of course it is. Antigone In Syria. I can't think about everything, so I limit the field to American watercolorists from 1920 to 1940, the specific, as Olson constantly reminds us, opens OUT. My taste certainly has. Another attempt to deal with light, as all painting does, but with a particular slant. I had to stop, coming home yesterday, on Mackletree, because the wedges of sunlight were blinding and I kept losing track of the road. There was a vehicle coming the other way and I thought it prudent to pull over, since I could barely see where I was going, and, naturally, it was the Forest Service constabulary. I know him, to speak to, and he stopped, parallel with me in the road, effectively blocking traffic, though there was none (most days I drive the length of Mackletree, five miles, without ever passing another vehicle) and we talked about ticks and what a lousy morel season it had been. I rolled him a cigaret, and one for myself, and we sat there for a few minutes, talking about the windstorm, and he was amazed that my power and phone were restored. I explained that I let those guys hunt on my property, the guys that cleared power easements, and he nodded, understanding perfectly the pecking order. We talked about ground water and wet-weather springs. I guess, because I'm a military brat, my attachment to place is a different thing than it is for someone who was born and bred in the same general area. There's always a local history, and local characters. It's hard to keep up, without certain devices. Read more...

Elucubration

To produce (mostly literary) work by long and intensive effort. A lovely word. You see all those other words inside it. Joyce was so fond of the pun, he'd often go out of his way to make a connection. I make a point of not doing that. If I had my choice, I'd just try and bring us back to the real. You, with another nudge in a liberal direction, but it was John Paul, who changed his vote. As I'm am outsider, nothing I say makes a difference. Thank god. You wouldn't believe what I thought anyway. That even Bush's appointment would lean toward labor. The moon peeping through a break in the trees, no wind, a few stars. Yes, I do have power, and no, I don't have a phone, the lines come in from different directions, and there are completely different crews. This will create another backlog piece, where the tense gets confusing, but it so nice to be sitting in my chair, looking out at a familiar landscape. Ninety-one degrees, inside; turn on the AC, put away groceries and laundry, waiting for Black Dell to chill out. I read a profile of Nicolas Serota, director of the various Tate galleries in England. A major mover in modern art circles. England was incredibly resistant to modern art, as it threatened their world, which had ended with Turner. The tense is difficult, in these back-logged pieces, because I'm both in and out; days later, of course, everything is in the past. But there's an immediacy, in the moment, that seems very present. I want that confusion to be apparent, because it is. Tense is tricky. If our narrator tells something in the present, then he uses present tense, even though the actual event is history. Read Procopius, "The Secret History", makes you wonder what was really going on. History is a construct. A fact is watching the legs emerge that change a tadpole into a frog. Things happen. You can either watch the things or read the commentary. Neither is better, I tend toward a middle way, where I try and balance the two. I watch a lot and read. Habits. Hobbits, tree-tip pits. Meaning must have a place in this. Now it's the next day, and the phone company swears I'll have a phone by the time I get home from work. More late afternoon squall lines expected for the next couple of days. D's truck isn't starting and we spend time trying to jump it, the AC guys come and the fins need cleaning on the roof-top units, which means running water from the kitchen, out the door, and up three floors. All the couplings leak, so the back hallway is a dreadful mess, the inter-net is down, and Wendy calls from Columbus, she's bringing twelve docents down on Wednesday, the 25th, for their Carter tutorial. I'll be with them most of the day. It certainly will be interesting. It was silly of me to think there wasn't a name for Friday's storm, even though it is generic. These clear-air phenomena, what they're called is "Derecho", which is a Spanish word meaning 'straight'. The way the wind comes at you. In meteorology it means a hard-assed, violent, convective wind storm. It's so cool to find that word, which I had never heard before. I've never been a good speller, but I have a good memory for the sound of a word and I can usually tease out the meaning from context. Google is my friend. In many ways I'm just a fact-checker, which justifies the countless hours chasing down a word. Now I can just look up, when I hear the wind in the trees, mutter 'Derecho' under my breath, and sign off. Read more...